Some past issues re: CFC VMs

[Kevin Pacey]

I recently posted a blog entry and received a request to post it in this forum - here's a cut and paste of the basic text of it:

Some past issues re: CFC Governors (aka Voting Members):

by Kevin Pacey, 02-11-2021 at 10:49 PM (154 Views)

Nowadays the modern NFP act leaves the CFC less flexible in the way it can make changes - at the least a payment to the federal government may be required to change important CFC regulations. Hence at the moment there would seem little appetite for changing the way people become CFC VMs (e.g. One [CFC] Member One Vote, or possibly new qualifications to become/stay a VM), or to change the %/number of VMs chosen annually, notably so that there are less of them, proportionally, compared to the total number of CFC members (to reduce the bureaucratic overkill, or [abundance of apathetic] 'deadwood', as has sometimes been unkindly written). Nevertheless today's restrictive NFP, or the CFC's apparent lack of desire for radical change re: VMs, may not always be so in the future, or, alternatively, if the CFC should ever go under and then a replacement organization rise in its place, there could be a re-think of these aforementioned issues at some point, so I thought I'd make observations about one of said issues by recalling some things from the distant past, in case they are otherwise forgotten.

Many years ago I was a relatively new VM, and I proposed for discussion the idea that VMs should all do 'constituency work', much like politicians. Something like doing at least one of organizing and/or directing a CFC rated event at least once in the previous year, committing to be on a CFC Committee in the coming year (if not being elected as an Officer), or else donating at least $100 to the CFC. Of course, there's no way, the way things were, that each provincial organization would have agreed to be bound by this checklist when selecting their VMs, nor would the VMs then have voted on mass for such a thing if it had been made into a motion, and someone would have had to keep track of VMs' efforts with their own checklist, but I was younger then, and more idealistic - furthermore, politicians get paid, while (the all volunteer) VMs don't. Anyway, one VM wrote that a Governor (VM)'s role was simply 'to govern' - I thought that was shades of 'I'm entitled to my entitlements', though he at some point noted that at some time he'd done all the things I suggested on the short list above. Some years later, a certain IM ironically expressed to me on a message board that VMs should all do lots of 'grunt' work (i.e. organize/direct), but even non-VMs were telling him he was all wet.

Here's a link to the blog entry itself:

http://www.chesscanada.info/forum/en...oting-Members)